Stretching Executive Privilege to the Breaking Point

Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein wrote in the Washington Post: "Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege."

Our President and Vice President are, it seems, above the law. They claim that they cannot be held in contempt of court, because they alone have the authority to decide what the Justice Department will do, and they will not have the Justice Department look into matters where they have claimed executive privilege. Wonderful. They (including the Justice Department) are suspected of having broken the law, and are issued subpoenas, and can just thumb their noses at the whole proceeding?

The article reports that Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University and an authority on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing." He explained: "That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers. What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

Rozell went on to say that this maneuver "is almost Nixonian in its scope and breadth of interpreting its power. Congress has no recourse at all, in the president's view. . . . It's allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers."

And the article quotes Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) as saying that the administration is "hastening a constitutional crisis," while Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the position "makes a mockery of the ideal that no one is above the law."

This is indeed a constitutional crisis. The oversight powers of Congress are being stripped away by this Executive. The only way that I can see to overcome it is to vote these people out of office, but we have to wait more than a year to do that. Representative Waxman said that the next step would be to "disband the Justice Department," which Congress technically has the power to do. But because the Executive is the enforcement arm of our Federal Government, it couldn't be enforced. I believe the statement is rhetorical at any rate. The Justice Department is too important.

This is what happened when the Supreme Court ruled that we must honor our treaty with the Cherokee Nation, and respect their territorial rights. President Andrew Jackson, because the Executive is the enforcement arm of judicial decisions just said, in effect, 'We won't enforce it. So there! What are you going to do about it?' In fact, nothing was done. And that cleared the way for the infamous "Trail of Tears," where the Cherokee people were removed in order for Euro-American settlers to steal the Cherokee people's lands. It was behavior moved by greed, and encouraged by the Executive's attitude of being above-the-law.

Bush, in a similar way, protects his cronies and continues to have our young people dying in Iraq, due to selfish greed, and this attitude of being above-the-law. I have no doubt that they would be impeached were it not for the fact of Republican loyalty to the President, and the lack of a 2/3 majority by the Democrats.

We have lived through one of the worst administrations in American history. Thank God it will soon be over. May we all pray that we will do better next time. When voters vote, they have to want a government that cares about the people of this country, and not just about the wealthy. When voters vote, they have to want a government that cares about the traditions of our country. We cannot allow the Executive Branch of government to become dictators who are above-the-law.